El Fuego And Beso Restaurants Facing Closure After Feds Indicted Owners For Tax Evasion

A federal indictment charged the owners and operators of the El Fuego, El Beso and Omega Burger restaurants for tax evasion, filing false personal tax returns, not reporting actual revenues generated and paying employees cash to evade paying payroll taxes.

By H. Nelson Goodson

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

June 24, 2015

Milwaukee, WI - An unsealed federal indictment charged the owners and operators of three local restaurants with tax evasion. Paul Bouraxis, 65, was charged with 10 counts of tax evasion for personal tax return in 2010, including for not withholding payroll tax returns for the Omega Burger and bank fraud as well for defaulting $4M in loans, if convicted, he is facing up to 85 years in prison and fines up to $3.75M; Freida Bouraxis, 60, is facing up to 5 years in prison and fines up to $250K; their son, Andreas Bouraxis, 38, is charged with 18 counts of tax evasion for personal tax return in 2010, including not withholding payroll tax returns for El Fuego and El Beso Restaurants, if convicted he is facing 19 years in prison and fines up to $4.75M and Reiad "Ray" Awadalla, 44,  is charged for filing personal false tax returns for 2009 to 2011, if convicted he is facing 14 years in prison and fines up to $1M. Their tax evasion operation netted them millions, but the defendants under reported their overall restaurant earnings and failed to withhold payroll taxes and paid employees cash.

Paul defrauded Associated bank for $4M in loans and later defaulted. The IRS criminal investigation agents confiscated $1.7M in cash including 33 100-ounce bars (ingots) of silver, jewelry and gold items for forfeiture. The Bouraxis family had bank accounts in Greece worth more than $2M, according to the federal indictment.

The restaurants include El Fuego in Milwaukee, El Beso in Greenfield and Omega Burger in Franklin. The Omega Burger has closed and the two other restaurants will face the same fate.

The Bouraxis accountant from Sheboygan, Scott Sherman, 45, pled guilty in a plea agreement for not reporting more than $48K of earned income in tax personal returns between 2007 to 2011. He agreed to pay at least $93K in restitution and cooperate with the investigation in the tax evasion federal cases against the Bouraxis family.

In a separate indictment, Gus Kuotromanos, 68, owner of Omega on Twenty Seven was charged with two counts for tax evasion for 2011. He is co-owner of Omega on S. 27th Street. According to the indictment, Kuotromanos paid his employees $350K in cash and failed to deduct payroll taxes. If convicted, Kuotromanos is facing up to 10 years in prison and $500K in fines.